Plaguesong
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash. Against the Boneturn Plague, the wizarding world is helpless- unless two powerful wizards bond and use their twinned consciousness to drive out the disease. And Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are the two best candidates a desperate Ministry has been able to find. COMPLETE.


**Title: **Plaguesong

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco

**Warnings: **Angst, minor character deaths, forced bond, dubious consent

**Rating: **R

**Wordcount: **5400

**Summary: **Against the Boneturn Plague, the wizarding world is helpless-unless two powerful wizards bond so that their twinned consciousness can drive out the disease. And Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are the two best candidates a desperate Ministry has been able to find.

**Author's Notes: **An Advent fic based on an anonymous request: _Harry and Draco never became friends after the war, but a plague is attacking the Wizarding world, and only they have the combined magic powerful enough to cast the spell to effect a cure. But it requires that they not only become bonded, but must consummate the union._

**Plaguesong**

"This is it, lads."

Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice was bleak, but Harry thought his eyes were more compassionate when Kingsley looked at him instead of at Malfoy. Harry only nodded. He understood the silent message, that Kingsley would have got him out of this if he could.

But he also knew there was no other choice. Sure, he didn't want to think of life bonded to Malfoy, but it was unlikely that he would _have _a life soon if the Boneturn Plague wasn't stopped. Most wizards wouldn't.

Harry swallowed and shut his eyes against a hot wave of anger, rubbing his scar by force of long habit, although it hadn't hurt since the Battle of Hogwarts. But this was still that bastard Voldemort's fault. Apparently, he'd prepared a spell that had begun to seep out of the sealed room in one of his strongholds once the wards on the room failed. They'd had to be renewed every six months, said the report by the Aurors who had discovered the room, and by Voldemort himself, or the plague would begin to spread.

It was a disease that spread to its victims' brains first, and made them consumed with touching everyone they could get their hands on-scratching or biting them, specifically, since the plague needed that kind of contact to spread, just like lycanthropy. And then the disease would bear down, and the victim's bones would begin growing, stretching and flexing until they shoved internal organs aside and pierced the lungs and broke through the skin. They died in pain that not even the strongest potions were able to slow down, their bodies grotesque lumps festooned with ends of bone.

Five hundred wizards had died already, almost everyone in Hogsmeade and a lot in Diagon Alley. Fleeing people who already had the disease had carried it to Ireland and Scotland, and there were reports of it in France.

The Aurors had given up trying to track it, or cure people who already had it. They had reasoned that, as the plague was created by a spell, it could be defeated by a spell, and that magic could possibly save anyone who had it right now as well as those who might be infected.

Their research had uncovered a spell, all right. Or maybe the Unspeakables' research had. Harry hadn't cared to ask which it was when Kingsley had contacted him, in the middle of the night, and explained quickly and grimly what would be required.

Harry would probably already have the plague if not for his habit of living isolated to avoid his fans. So would Malfoy if not for his Manor's powerful protections. They were at Malfoy Manor now, in a room outfitted with plaques of conjured black marble on the walls and floor, and a great etched circle of gold in the floor, outlining the gold, five-pointed, rune-decorated star necessary for the ritual that would finish the plague.

And in the center of the huge star, positioned over its arms in some mystical manner that Harry assumed the Ministry and Malfoy understood, was a bed. It was big enough for three, made of dark wood to echo the black marble they'd had to use elsewhere, and the sheets were made of silk embroidered with cloth of gold and more runes.

He and Malfoy were going to be getting into those sheets. And when they rose again, their minds would be intertwined.

Harry had to press his hands together. He hated the idea. He had already had enough invasion of his mind from Snape's long-ago Occlumency lessons. No lesser need would have made him agree to this.

But he hated the thought of his friends and neighbors and innocent wizards who had done nothing to earn this-everyone he had fought so hard to save in the war-dying from Voldemort's last vengeful strike more. The bastard was never going to win. Harry would make sure of that.

He caught Kingsley's eye and nodded. Kingsley bowed his head, body radiating both distress and relief, and lifted his wand.

A curtain of white light sprang into being on the room's single door, leaving a single man-sized hole for Kingsley to walk through, and in places on the walls that Harry assumed had been the room's windows before the marble plaques covered them. He stared at them for long, bleak moments before he turned his attention to the man at his side.

Malfoy looked like a stork, honestly, with how pointed and pale his face was, and the way he turned his head from side to side as if he'd like to jab something with his nose. He looked at Harry, and his eyes reflected the same cool disdain and determination to get this over with that Harry thought his face did. Hopefully Malfoy also felt the same compulsion to do this right.

Harry thought he probably did. Otherwise, he would have made some sharp remark or run screaming from the room in disgust before now.

Which didn't mean either of them _wanted _this. But they didn't have to want it to save the world. Harry ought to know that.

"The spell is cast, lads." Kingsley stepped back from the bed, which was humming a little, with a glance that took in both Harry and Malfoy this time. "You know what you have to do. Surrender your wands."

Harry grimaced, but handed his holly wand to Kingsley, watching as Malfoy's hawthorn one made the same trip. The initial bond, the consummation of said bond, and the raising of the magic they would need to join their minds would all have to be wandless, to come from the old magic of "blood and seed" (and Harry would go mad if he had to have that phrase quoted at him one more time). They would have their wands back when the initial power had been raised and was sweeping through the minds of wizards along the chains of infection.

They would have their wands back sooner if they failed, but Harry didn't want to think about that.

"Thank you," said Kingsley, and there was human emotion in his voice again, where he hadn't permitted it for a long time. Harry knew why. He reached out a hand, and Kingsley caught and squeezed it, hard enough that Harry winced a little. Kingsley eased the hold, and looked inquiringly at Malfoy, but Malfoy avoided any handshake without seeming to. Kingsley turned back to Harry. "You have no idea what this means."

"I expect to have the traditional reward after this, you know," said Harry, with almost the only humor he could muster. "The feast of roast boar on a golden platter and silver dishes stuffed with quails' eggs. And half the kingdom."

"A quarter," Malfoy murmured unexpectedly, the first words he'd said since he stepped into the room. "Because half of that half shall be in my possession."

Kingsley nodded, his eyes sparkling frenetically. "And a troupe of dancing girls-well, maybe not," he added, either because he had remembered the bond or because of the slowly freezing look Malfoy was giving him.

"Yes, I think we'll skip the dancing girls," said Harry dryly, and watched as Kingsley walked out the hole in the light on the door. It snapped back together to make a solid pearly curtain the instant he was through. From outside it, he turned and waved. Then he went, Harry knew, to join the circle of Aurors who would direct the power as it needed to be directed.

"Come on, Potter."

Harry turned, and Malfoy was holding out his hand to him. The last time he had done that rang in Harry's thoughts, but he managed to get rid of it with a small shake of his head. Malfoy's brows pinched together, then relaxed again when Harry moved towards him and clasped his hand and he seemed to understand it wasn't a denial.

"Now," Malfoy murmured, guiding him towards the bed. The sheets felt soft and cool against Harry's legs in an alien manner when he sat down. "We haven't discussed this. Who's topping?"

Harry swallowed. Kingsley had explained to him that it wouldn't matter who took which position or who did what in the initial bonding consummation; what mattered was the mind-bond that resulted, when they would have _two _powerful wizards joined and acting as one. That was the whole point of this spell, that they had to have more magic than would come from any one person, but it also had to be wielded in perfect concert. And Harry and Malfoy were both the strongest and the most compatible they could find at short notice.

"You top," said Harry, and lay back against the pillows. Both he and Malfoy were dressed in ordinary clothes. It wasn't costumes that would give this ritual power.

Malfoy stared at him in such shock that Harry smiled. There, now he was seeing past the cold masks that Malfoy had worn. "What?" Malfoy barely said the word before he gasped and said another, "_Why_?"

"Because I would rather be hurt than hurt someone."

* * *

><p>Draco placed his hands flat on the bed to hold himself up. He felt as if his head had flown off his shoulders and was circling around the room like a witless dove who'd lost its mate.<p>

He'd assumed without thinking about it that Potter would top, and Draco would let him because it wasn't worth fighting about; he'd lived in fear of the plague for enough months now, watched it slay enough friends, that he wanted the fear to stop more than he wanted anything else. He'd also assumed Potter would be rough, horrendous in fact, that-

But that one statement had given him more insight into Potter than he'd had in all their lives before.

He leaned up and did something he hadn't thought he would bother doing: he kissed Potter. Potter blinked and pushed his glasses up. Draco took the edge of those before they could start bothering him, and pulled them off Potter's face, laying them on top of the broad headboard, where they ought to be out of the way.

"Is there any specific reason that I get the special treatment?" Potter's hand was resting loosely on the back of Draco's neck, as though he could be persuaded to move it elsewhere depending on what happened.

"Because you're more generous than I thought you were," Draco murmured, between kisses, forcing him back gently across the pillows. "And you're not going to be horrid about this." He reached for Potter's shirt, then cursed softly when he saw his fingers trembling.

"I can do this part," Potter said, and undid the shirt. Then he reached for Draco's, his eyes holding Draco as he did so, calculating, waiting. Waiting to see if the gesture was going to be tolerated, Draco thought.

Draco nodded, and his shirt seemed to float off his shoulders. Neither of them were wearing robes; Draco didn't think Potter often did, and formal dress had seemed inappropriate when they were going to be doing-this. At least, Draco thought as he leaned back to take off his trousers, this gave them some more time to get used to the sight of each other slowly becoming naked.

Potter's body was _contained _in a way that surprised Draco. He was still thinner than Draco would have thought advisable, but he had less muscle, too, as if all the power that had destroyed a Dark Lord and won a war was spread out along his body, some in his shoulders, some in his arms, some in his legs.

Some in his eyes. The first time he lifted his head and returned Draco's kiss, his eyes burned with fierce acknowledgement, fierce refusal to look away from what was happening between them.

Draco cupped his hand behind Potter's neck for it, and threaded his fingers through Potter's hair. He started to say something, to ask if Potter had taken the potions that ought to make him ready for this, and then stopped, blinking. The gold star on which the bed sat was glowing.

Potter noticed it at the same time, and chuckled, the skin around his eyes crinkling in a way that made Draco confident he wasn't the butt of the joke. "Well. I suppose that they didn't think we would get to this point without potions, but we did."

He leaned in, and Draco leaned in at the same time, making them clack teeth. But they straightened things out, and if kissing Potter wasn't as pleasant as kissing some other people had been for Draco, at least it wasn't horrendously awkward, either.

Potter's critical, assessing gaze on him wasn't bad, either. Draco knew he wasn't what Potter would have gone for in any other circumstances, but at least he wasn't flinching or rolling his eyes, or closing them. In fact, he rolled over with a grace that made Draco relax even further.

"All right, then," Potter said, and buried his face into the pillows. "Can you-can you stroke me a bit? I know that we both have to come." That was what the books that talked about the "consummation" of this ritual insisted on. "Can you-can you touch me?"

_Not embarrassed when he's looking at me, only when he's not, _Draco thought, a trickle of what felt like fresh rainwater moving through his chest. He nodded, although Potter couldn't see him, and slid his hand down between Potter's legs. Potter gasped aloud as Draco took hold of him, gently working his hand back and forth in a loose circle. Potter was warm and filling beneath Draco's touch, and like this, it wasn't the cock of someone Draco had hated, or someone he didn't want to bed. It was just a nice cock.

_Is that going to be enough when we end up bonded to each other for the rest of our lives? _

Draco grimaced. Perhaps not, but he was as tired of mentally debating that as he suspected Potter was. He sat back and gathered up one of the several generous vials of lube that had been left on the table beside the bed, occupying one of the star's exposed points. The golden glow was even richer now, and coming from the sheets they lay on as well.

When he pulled open Potter's cheeks, Potter took in his breath and didn't release it again.

"This really is better if you relax," Draco muttered, and slid his fingers gently through the lube several times before trying to insert them into Potter.

Potter might not have heard him. Irritated, Draco prodded him in the belly with one finger, and he let go of his breath. "I promise," Draco said. "I know that there'll be some pain, that's inevitable, but I'm not going to fuck the life out of you, you know."

Potter nodded once, his hair rustling. "I know."

After that, he at least relaxed enough that Draco could slide his fingers into him. Now and then, Potter grunted and wriggled uncomfortably, but Draco was working him open and open. And all the time, the golden glow mounted around them, one of the signs they had been told about. The ritual was successfully being set up.

"Okay," Potter gasped at last. "You can do it now."

"You have to be ready and _pleasured_," Draco said. Potter didn't sound nearly as relaxed as Draco had thought he was. "Let me-" And he stuck his fingers into Potter again and wriggled them around, despite the deep flush he could feel building up in his cheeks. Yes, this was embarrassing, but it would be even more embarrassing to fail when they had so many signs that they could succeed.

"Malfoy, it's okay-_what_."

Draco grinned. Yes, that was what he'd been looking for. "I can make this feel good," he said, and lined his own cock up behind Potter. "It's true about the pain. But there can be pleasure."

Potter said nothing, gasping instead, but he reached back and gripped Draco's knee. Draco nodded at him and pressed forwards. Both he and Potter seemed to share two goals, then: to raise the power for the spell successfully and to make sure that they wouldn't hate each other at the end of this.

Draco grunted as he slid in, slowly, holding himself back as much as he could, his teeth gritted. He would make this work. He was going to do it. No one, not even Potter, had held him back when Draco was doing something he really _wanted _to do, as opposed to being forced into doing it.

And if Potter worked with him, then Draco thought they would be largely unstoppable.

* * *

><p>It felt as though someone was cleaving him apart, with isolated flashes of pleasure.<p>

_Well, you knew it would feel that way, _Harry thought, and dropped his head so he could rest his brow on the back of his wrist. It seemed to help, that skin-to-skin contact, although why it should when he was getting _extensive _skin-to-skin contact all over his back and behind him-

It just did.

And when Malfoy began to thrust, Harry could feel the pleasure more strongly. He gripped the edge of one pillow and tried to judge the angle. When he thought it was right, he thrust backwards himself.

Malfoy gasped aloud, and whispered, "Potter." A few more strokes, while Harry aligned himself again, and yes, this time Malfoy was hitting the thing inside him that made him feel good, a tingling, burning flush that spread throughout his body. And Malfoy whispered, "Harry."

_We can do this. _Malfoy didn't even sound grudging about saying his first name.

Harry let himself become part of the sensations, knowing that was all he needed to do for now. The work of the spell would come when they had consummated the bond that the ritual needed to establish.

For now, it was _being _established. Harry was deeply, crushingly aware of Malfoy's weight on his back, his length inside Harry, the hands on his hips and spine and other parts of him that shifted restlessly in response to the roaring need Harry assumed was consuming Malfoy. The feeling that burned in him wasn't quite need, yet, but it was the itch to keep moving, and that was more than Harry had assumed he'd get.

Then Malfoy found the spot inside Harry on his own, and started battering it with ramming thrusts that Harry wouldn't have thought he could possibly like. But he did. He liked them a lot, and he arched his neck and cried out hoarsely.

Malfoy shifted somehow-it felt like a real balancing act to Harry, although he wasn't sure how much of that was true-and then he found Harry's cock, tugging on it almost in rhythm with the way he was thrusting into Harry.

Almost, but not quite, and the contrast of the two drove Harry crazy. He drove his elbows into the sheets and pushed himself back, back and back and back, hoarse with need now, wanting it to end. It had to end-

He came.

That, combined with the feeling of someone steadily moving inside him, was better than he had ever known it could be, and he squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that even the steadily building golden glow outside them couldn't get through his eyelids. He wanted to enjoy this.

He felt Malfoy come inside him, and he enjoyed that, too.

Then the sudden grip of magic on his skin made him gasp, and he tried to open his eyes, and found he couldn't.

That was because he didn't have eyes anymore. He didn't have skin. He didn't have a separate body. He was floating in the midst of a sea of light that consumed him and bore him away, and brought him into a world of song.

And Draco/Malfoy was with him.

* * *

><p>The song was so loud that no matter where they turned, they couldn't escape it.<p>

The song was made of two blended notes, and after a moment, they understood that those notes were _them_. One note represented the more restless, dancing music, the clash of rebellious tones indicating how much he'd had to struggle to simply survive. Flashes of green, skirls of gold, were here and there in it, and the black of sorrow, the silver of tragedy, the intense purple of interest in various subjects. That note was deeper than they had known it would be, either the one who was completely unfamiliar with it or the other one who was viewing himself from the outside for the first time.

The other note shimmered between dark green and black on the surface, but underneath, the tone was shrill and soft and unrelenting, a winter wind singing to itself to keep the cold alive. There were curls of pure silver and pure black, but also a soft, calming blue, and the whispering undertone of power. He possessed more power than he knew, more experience of parental love, the beginning of the song that he always returned to when he went astray. He was substantially brighter than either of them would have thought, and for a moment they paused in wonder.

But they had a purpose to accomplish here, and they turned back to the songs around them, constant bars and staves, tones and pitches, shades and notes and entire symphonies, that signaled power and magic.

The magic of the wizarding world was only one singing harp amongst a thousand others, but it was one they focused on easily. That music had nurtured them, and they could hear the way it _should _sound, the rippling notes that traveled from one invisible string to another, so many variations that ultimately they blended together into a larger pattern, heard from the outside.

Opposing it, laid across it, like a pair of hands trying to wrench the harp into playing another tune, was a different kind of music. It blared. It was black and silver, and it wanted to spread that black and silver into other songs instead of simply singing about it. It rang and jarred their teeth and broke the strings of the harp.

_The Boneturn Plague, _one of them thought, and the other agreed, thoughts dancing back and forth between in a quick whistle of demand.

Their doubled minds turned on it. They reached out and into the music of the wizarding world. No single wizard stood a chance of affecting that. They were _part _of the music, and they couldn't play the whole thing any more than a single string on a harp could.

But someone who was outside it, _two _someones who were outside it, grounded by their own music into being part of each other more than they were part of the wizarding world...

They could hear it. And they knew the way it was supposed to sound.

One of them began to sing the normal music. The other formed the deep background hum, the great symphony of the world that this was only a small composition of. The Boneturn Plague didn't affect Muggles. The voice of their world was always the same in this song, and so they could check the wizarding world's music against it and bring it back into the proper alignment.

But the blaring cry of the plague trailed them, and they saw quickly that it wasn't going to work. Disgusting as the plague was, it had been created with magic. That meant that it took some of its song and its being from inside the song of the wizarding world. Restoring the notes would end up strengthening some of the notes from the plague.

_ So what can we do? _The thought echoed and bounced between them, and it was the brighter mind that answered it.

_This is the reason that they needed you, Harry. That plague came from the Dark Lord's magic. And you know his magic, because you had some of it inside you._

No secrets like this, all their memories shared, and after a startled, resigned moment, the deeper mind accepted it. _And so did you. A trace of his being, inside the Mark on his forearm._

A rest like a caught breath, a flicker of a wild riff like a lashing tongue. _That's another reason we could bond. Another reason we're equal._

_So this is what we need to do._

They began to sing again, and this time, it wasn't the song of the wizarding world and the Muggle world. It was the dark notes they recognized from the plague's creator, the notes braided with the plague, combined with the opposites of those notes. Where the originals were low, these were high. Where those notes hissed and paraded, these whispered and darted. Where the notes that wove the bones through the body were brittle and central, these crowded the outside of the song, giving it a breathy, hollow core, and then blazed into strength unexpectedly.

They sang it and sang it, over and over again, ignoring the plaguesong wrenching at the harp of the wizarding world, until they were sure they had it true.

Then they turned and passed their music into the plaguesong, and through it. Where the dark notes sparked and cut off the other dark notes, they blended with them and rendered them harmless. The notes _they _had sung came from their experiences of surviving the plague's creator. Darkness purged and survived gave them an immunity. Half the plaguesong was suddenly gone, the part that created the initial infection, incapable of singing any further. What sounded instead was the soft, persistent ripple of sweetness that came from opening one's eyes to another dawn.

And the notes that were the opposite of the plaguesong's simply hit their opposites and vanished them out of existence. Where there had been noise, there was silence. The air around them rang.

In the silence, one of them remembered to carefully shove the plaguesong towards the waiting Aurors. They were still the ones who had to provide the power to keep this song going. Otherwise, it would only touch the plague's infected victims in the part of the wizarding world that corresponded to the nearest chord, and while it would keep anyone new from getting sick, they wanted to heal everyone.

In the mixture of silence and the song of their blended souls, their blended survivals, they became aware of one thing, one color and one note that echoed back and forth between them.

_Tired. _

_Very tired, _they agreed, and they made the long trek back to their bodies, following the notes to the place where the duet that made them up originated.

* * *

><p>Draco opened his eyes, tried to lift himself to his hands and knees, and staggered. Even a motion that ought to have taken him little effort took an enormous amount now. He did manage to shift himself to the side, away from Harry's back, but that only made him collapse onto the bed and lie there limply.<p>

_Draco? _sang Harry's bond-voice, not flat and calm the way that commands through the Imperius Curse were, but a vibration of tone and tune that comforted Draco immediately. After what they had been through, it would have been hard for him to hear the music of Harry's mind as anything else.

Concentrating hard, he managed to stir one hand. He reached out and clasped Harry's fingers, and Harry clasped back. But he didn't manage to lift his head or stir his body, either. They had to lie there facing in the same direction, not able to see each other's faces.

Well, Draco was all right with that. They could still speak.

_No one else has ever done anything like that, _he sang, and Harry's music came back to him, the notes that made up a satisfied laugh.

_I reckoned you would be proud of it mainly because of that. _

_I'm proud for other reasons, _and Draco attuned his voice to those deep regions of Harry's mind that no one had ever seen, not even Professor Snape when he performed Legilimency on him. Harry shuddered in response. From where he lay, Draco could see gooseflesh rise on his bare arse.

_Yes. So am I._

Draco shut his eyes. He would have found the vulnerability of a bond intolerable if someone had merely _told _him about it, but as it was, this was equal vulnerability, and an intimacy no one else would ever share, and that was good enough for him.

They drifted in shared silence except for the shimmering chimes that echoed back and forth on them and would on a regular basis, identifying to them each other and reassuringly liquid like heartbeats, until someone hammered on the door. Draco tried to scramble to at least throw his hand over Harry's groin and shield him from sight that way, but exhaustion made it impossible to twitch his fingers.

Harry worked spit and strength into his mouth and shouted, "Did it work?"

A pause, and then Shacklebolt said gently, "It worked, lads. Thank you. The plague-the plague is passing, apparently. We felt the wind of the cure go through us, and there's no doubt that it was _healing _magic. We'll have to wait a while until we can be sure there are no new cases and the ones with bones growing through their skin have them shrinking, of course. But we're as sure as we can be without that."

"Thank Merlin," Draco moaned, a windy little sound that no one but Harry could have heard. There was no breath behind it. He had used all his breath in that great music.

"We're all right," Harry managed to say. "Leave." Draco admired the way he had expressed that wish so succinctly, and Harry sang back at him, _Well, I couldn't exactly say that we're worn out from fucking and singing, could I? _

_It wasn't fucking. It was bonding. _With a push of effort that he thought came from his magical core, Draco urged himself closer to Harry. His bondmate. His music-mate. His twinned mind. He would get used to thinking of him that way. Those ways. _I want you to speak of it like that._

The sensation of a smile rolled back at him, the way it would in someone's voice. _All right. I will._

Draco closed his eyes and rested his nose against the skin of Harry's back. _I wish we had the magical strength to clean up. _

_I think-maybe-_

Harry was concentrating. Draco told him to stop in the same moment as Harry opened his mouth and sang one incredibly complex note, his voice vibrating as if he had two. Well, of course, he was drawing on Draco's magic at the same time.

The mess coating them vanished. Draco grunted. _So all magic is music, then? And we can use it that way? _

_If we know the notes. It takes a lot of effort to hear them. _The words from Harry's mind were slurring, now, and his tune bobbed up and down like someone trying to sing after a full shot of Firewhisky. _More later._

His mind passed into darkness, and Draco was startled at how alone he immediately felt. He rested his face more fully against Harry's back, and closed his eyes.

Doubtless not all moments would be as easy as this. But not many moments in their bond would be as hard as singing the opposite of the plaguesong, either, or saving the whole bloody wizarding world.

_If there's anyone who can teach me to live with the consequences of that, it's Harry._

All in all, Draco thought, as he followed his bondmate into what he was almost sure would be a shared dream full of duets, this bond was something he wouldn't have sought, but he didn't intend to give it _up_ now that he had it, either.

**The End.**


End file.
